Currently, a concept of an SDN (Software Defined Network) is quite popular. A main feature of the SDN is that a control plane is separated from a data plane, and control planes of different devices are centralized, and are centrally controlled by using a centralized control device, so as to achieve an objective of improving overall resource utilization by means of centralized control. Further, a capability is further exposed to an upper level (for example, a content provider). Currently, an SDN technology is mainly applied to an IP transmission network, and is reflected as centralized control on data packet routes in the IP transmission network. According to data statistics, bandwidth utilization of a data center may be efficiently improved from originally 30% to 90% by means of centralized control.
In an LTE (Long Term Evolution) wireless network, a user plane protocol stack that is on an air interface side and that is between an eNB and UE includes three sub-layers: a PDCP (Packet Data Convergence Protocol) layer, an RLC (Radio Link control) layer, and a MAC (Medium Access Control) layer. In the foregoing user plane protocol stack, the RLC layer is mainly responsible for reliability of data packet transmission on the air interface side, and has functions such as reordering out-of-order data packets, and the PDCP layer has functions such as performing security encryption/decryption and header compressing on the data packets.
On the air interface side, all user plane data packets need to undergo the same protocol stack processing by the eNB and the UE, that is, all the user plane data packets need to be processed on a PDCP layer, an RLC layer, and a MAC layer.
During study of the prior art, the inventor of the present disclosure finds that: In some applications, data packets on a user plane feature a small data volume, for example, data packets in an M2M application. However, in the prior art, a waste of resources is relatively severe in a process of transmitting these small data packets.